If you have a spare IDE HD lying around then I would suggest the following.
Remove your newly installed Vista HD.
PLug in your spare drive and install XP on it. Don't forget F6 to install Raid drivers during setup.
XP should recognise your array correctly and show it in the list of destination drives. Select the spare drive as your destination and install windows normally.
Once XP is installed copy your data away safely and then consider changing your Raid 0 config. As another poster has already stated. Raid 0 and backup is a contradiction in terms.
XP pro would be the better option if possible as it will allow you to take ownership of the files if it is required without going into safe mode.
Hope you find this info helpful.
as a computer technician that works for a company that does data recovery on a daily basis (i mean from DEAD harddrives... electronic and mechanical) follow his advice... it's pure brilliance...
to clear things up, and add a few steps:
1.) take out the vista o/s drive
2.) install spare drive with windows XP (preferrably xp pro... for file permission reasons)
3.) reinstall sata/raid drivers
4.) XP will recognize the raid setup once you're in
5.) once the raid is recognized, install the VISTA DRIVE as a SLAVE and DON'T BOOT FROM IT
6.) boot into the XP O/S
7.) access the RAID and migrate the data from the RAID to the VISTA DRIVE in an easy to locate folder
-- if this fails and says 'access is denied' you need to strip the permissions and take ownership of the files/folders
-- if you only have XP home, search google for programs that can do this for you..
8.) once the data is copied to the VISTA drive, turn the computer off, take out the XP harddrive, boot into VISTA and check your data!!!
9.) once this has been accomplished, format your RAID and consider RAID1 instead (RAID = Redundant Array of Independant Disks... there's nothing REDUNDANT about RAID0 except the hassle of fixing it when it goes down)
10.) Get your new REAL RAID going and smile as you accomplished a very difficult techy task
Cheers -= Mark =-